


What We in the ‘Biz Call, “A Fixer-Upper”

by hanktalkin



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Canon-Typical Gang Behavior, Disabled Character, Fake AH Crew, Female Jack Pattillo, Gen, Jeremy Is Gay And Does Crimes, Mechanic Jeremy Dooley, Minor Character Death, Origin Story, Roleswap, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-18 09:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanktalkin/pseuds/hanktalkin
Summary: A Fake AH origin story told in reverseorJeremy starts a crew. The rest falls into place.
Relationships: Jack Pattillo & Geoff Ramsey, Jeremy Dooley & Ryan Haywood
Comments: 30
Kudos: 95





	1. The Devil Was Born in Georgia

Jeremy, at the end of the day, was a craftsman.

He built engines, replaced taillights, told jokes to anyone who would listen. He was a jockey, a helper. He was a _fixer_ , someone who pulled things together with his bare hands, and one day—he thought as he smoked a cigar while staring out the open garage to the nightlife below—that wouldn’t just be a metaphor.

* * *

“Ray. Ray! Come on man, you can’t do this to me.”

“Oh cry me a fucking river, Dooley.”

Ray said his name like a joke, condescension that ached like old muscle tear that should have healed a long time ago. Still, Jeremy moved in front of the door, as if he could stop Ray with his body alone. As if any physical barrier was going to work when Ray was already long, long gone.

For what felt like the seventh time, Jeremy said, “you were _in_ on this, man.”

“Yeah, that was back when I thought you had a fucking plan.” Ray threw the last of his clothes in his bag. “Back before I knew our exit strategy was ‘we’ll wing it’.”

“Winging it is a good plan.” Jeremy wiped his palms on his jeans. Ray zipped up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder to join his rifle case. That was all there was to it—nothing left in the house to prove he existed at all. No scraps of clothes, no Game Boy. Two carry-ons and he had completely extracted himself from Jeremy’s life. “Please Ray. I can’t do this without you.”

“Then don’t.”

And then he was gone.

Jeremy stood alone in the kitchen for eons, just staring out at nothing while the sun carved a slow window-pattern across the foldout table. It seemed to be that the world was ending. He wasn’t like Ray—with his own weapons and means to go back to if the going got tough—Jeremy _needed_ this job to go well, needed to pay back for borrowed guns and other resources he’d expended setting up the small-time robbery. He raised his hands up and under his glasses, trying to massage the reality back into his skin.

_I need backup_ he thought numbly, and pulled out his phone. By habit, his fingers found the familiar number, sending two texts with barely a second between. He stared at the screen mutely for a little while, looking at the stream of blue that went up for months upon months, and only let out a final sigh of defeat when the last ray of sunshine passed over his shoe. This was bad. _Worse_ than bad—he needed either a partner or a miracle if he didn’t want to be on the business end of his supplier’s piece.

With a bite to the inside of his check, he asked himself where people went when they had no other options.

This time when he lifted his phone, he opened Craigslist and shot off a quick ad. _help needed. tonight (10/16/2015) not afraid of dirt, bring your own mask and tools._ It left a faint twinge in his fingers as he posted, like this moment signified the pivotal instance that would bring about his swift and ugly end. He walked over to the kitchen chair (just the one. Ray was the closest thing to a someone who might warrant more) and bent over it on the exhale. _Breathe_ , that was the thing. Breathe, that thing humans do. His body was still here, the night was still young, and the world wouldn’t be half as terrifying once the job started and he got a gun in his hands.

His phone vibrated. Someone had taken a bite.

* * *

The neon buzz of the giant M felt like a prickle on the back of his neck as he lurked underneath our holy fast food savior. It wasn’t wise to meet up with an accomplice the day of a job, especially with no resume, no backup, and no idea if the candidate in question might get bored and shoot him in the head. But he was out of options here—if Larry found out he couldn’t pay him back, biting it was only a matter of when.

Still, even with his head empty of expectations and his coat collar flipped protectively over the back of his neck, his prospective hire took him by surprise.

“You xXRimothyTimothyXx?”

“Jesus Christ!”

Leering out of the fine sheet of rain was a skull, black as Satan’s anus and attached to an absolute hulk of a man.

As soon as Jeremy’s heart stopped racing, he put both feet back on the pavement, releasing the grip sticking out the back of his jeans. The stranger was at least 6’2”, the shape of him cutting an imposing figure even without the added ambience.A blue jacket stuck wetly to what must have been some impressive biceps—the elastic edge coming to rest over thickly woven work jeans—but despite his size he’d approached Jeremy in complete silence.Shadow clung to the minute crevices in his face, staring down at Jeremy with complete and utter inscrutability.

“Mask as in _ski mask_ or some shit, not…” Jeremy prided himself on not letting his voice spike as high as it wanted to. “What’s with the fucking skull man?”

The giant shrugged. “It’s Halloween.”

_Is it?_ Jeremy could have sworn that wasn’t true, but looking around the run-down street outside the McDonalds wasn’t going to give him any insight into their approximate temporal juncture.

“Fine. Whatever. And no usernames, you can just call me J.” If he was being honest, the respondent was intimidating as all hell, but he knew better than to let a potential partner know he was jumpy. Jeremy folded his arms and filled his ribcage. “What are you packing?”

“…Packing?” the stranger said slowly. “As in guns?”

“Don’t tell me you fucking-” There had been two things on the checklist of applicant qualifications, and skull man had now missed both of them. Jeremy rubbed his temples briefly. “Great. Just great. Come on.”

He turned down the street, sneakers making rings in yellow reflections. The LTD was only two blocks away, and he got into his head that if they started right now, that would count as crazy and spontaneous and everything would work out. He shoved a spare pistol the stranger’s way.

“Twenty-four-hour convenience store, one guy working, no gun behind the counter. Go in, look big and scary, get out—no need to shoot anybody if we don’t have to.” Jeremy had never killed anyone before, didn’t think he wanted to, but he could feel the eventuality nipping at his heels every year he spent in this city. Nobody who lived here stayed virtuous for long. He side-eyed his companion and said, “what am calling you, anyway?”

“You can call me…” The shoulders beneath the jacket crinkled, then collapsed; as though holding a thought before giving up. “…My name starts with a J too.”

“ _Fuck_ dude just pick something.”

“…Call me Ryan,” Ryan said after a moment of deliberation.

“That doesn’t start with a…Jesus Christ.”

Jeremy was beginning to doubt man’s capabilities, no matter how well he adhered to first impressions. He had Jeremy go over his—again, three sentence long—plan multiple times, as though he couldn’t quite grasp what employer wanted him to do. Jeremy told him to just go in and point his gun.

Thankfully, he was able to carry out the _Look Big and Scary_ part of Jeremy’s plan to a T as they stormed the derelict corner store with all the grace of a demolition derby, packages of Nutter Butters staring at them as they unleashed their evil deeds. As Ryan stared down at the attendant across the counter, it was clear the kid was not paid enough for this shit.

Jeremy had given front position to Ryan, figured it was straight forward enough, difficult to screw up. It left himself the task of combing isles, making sure no one tried to be a hero.

Unfortunately, instead of heroes, he found the pissed off owner. No gun behind the counter didn’t account for the one the owner now leveled at him through two lanes of boxed wine.

The front window exploded, and he knew for sure he was dead by the way the world turned into a haze of floating glitter. He fired anyway, bringing the owner (and the shop) out of his view. His whole left side pricked with fire, green scorch marks inside his brain, but the adrenaline and his own determination kept the linoleum floors of the LTD from sliding away. He jumped through the shattered front window—not knowing the difference between a bullet wound and broken glass but too focused to check—and landed in the shattered mess outside. Lacerations gathered on his knees and hands, but he rolled to the side, pressing his back against the grey brick below and hoping against hope that his shot had hit its mark.

After a second, a bitter second when he tried to move air into his lungs, he shifted only to find his legs wouldn’t work. He sent another command, a dire and pressing shout of _move_ , but they only managed to shove him a little farther up the wall. The panic set in then, unable to combat what felt like a syringe of lactic acid shot directly into his body. This was it, this is how he would die: back against a shitty Seven-Eleven wannabe and unable to run away. Fuck him, fuck his life, fuck everything-

“ _Hey_.”

The hand on his shoulder wasn’t so much prodding him as shaking his living daylights out. He jerked to see Ryan’s black mask staring down at him, somehow giving a look of concern.

“ _We should go. Like, fast._ ”

Impossibly, Ryan’s pull was enough to get him to his feet, the settle in his voice cutting through the _fuck I killed him I killed that guy_ ** _fuck_** to perform miracles with its sheer magnetism. Jeremy followed him as he ran to the street, noticing that the hand holding his pistol was also clasped around the duffle bag. Wow. Pour one out for safe gun practices.

“How are we getting out of here?” Ryan asked as their feet hit pavement.

“Uh…” Jeremy looked up and down the empty street, the prospect of escape unlikely unless he could fashion something out of garbage cans and empty hamburger boxes. “And you chance you got a car?”

A rolling noise of—indignation?—came out the back of Ryan’s throat, but the distant caterwaul of sirens shut him up. Suddenly he turned east, sucked up by the black shadow of an alley. Jeremy did a double take, surprised at how quickly such a big man could disappear, but didn’t let his hesitation stay him for long before he followed.

They didn’t have to go far. Ryan led him to a white Chrysler LeBaron parked on a curb, to which Jeremy was forced to mutter out a, “you’ve got to be shitting me.” The LeBaron gave a cheerful _blink blink_ as Ryan clicked his fob.

Jeremy opened his mouth, desiring any sort of explanation, trying to put together one string of shitty events after another, but then he saw the handprint of blood Ryan left on the driver’s side door and remembered his arm was the origin of said blood. Clutching it, he clambered in the back seat. What appeared to be post-hole digger poked him in the side.

The LeBaron tore off, and Jeremy couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that didn’t account for how deep in shit they still were. Minutes ticked, he pressed himself against the side door in a feral instinct to stem the flow of blood. His eyes flicked to the duffle bag.

“So. Did you shoot the one up front?”

The edge of the mask’s profile came just beyond the headrest’s silhouette. “…Yeah.”

“Why?” Not that Jeremy was passing judgment. Not after he’d just shot a man and been returned the favor. The first two rites of passage in the Los Santos book of law; he was a real boy now.

Ryan tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. They were covered in soft, heavy gloves, flared at the wrists. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

“I’m not sure.” Ryan thought about it for a minute longer. “But it was kind of fun.”

Jeremy nodded at that. Wasn’t much else to say.

After more silence filled the car (and the smell of chemicals, sharp and distantly familiar,) Ryan appraised him thoughtfully through the rearview mirror. “…We should get that looked at.”

Like it was a planter wart instead of the shredded remains of his arm. “You have any idea where we’re going?”

“Hey man, I got the getaway vehicle. _You_ get us the safehouse.”

Jeremy puffed out his cheeks and let his breath out slow. “Fine. Just…fine. Take a left on Turning St.”

* * *

In a jolly mood for breaking all rules this fine night, Jeremy let Ryan into his house only to half collapse in the doorway. Gentleman that he was, Ryan helped him through, leaving him on the floral patterned loveseat while he went back to the car.

Jeremy let his head loll back onto the cushion for a moment. Everything was exactly how he had left it yet…different. Moved three inches to the left. Dark in a way that the encroaching dawn couldn’t quite account for.

His arm was a mess, though he couldn’t be sure if there was a bullet it in it or not until he sorted through the rest of the debris. He stood, sliding his toolbox out from underneath his workbench.

“That can’t be sanitary,” Ryan noted as he came back inside to find Jeremy pulling out glass shards with electrical pliers.

Jeremy looked up briefly before resuming, inch by agonizing inch while he accumulated a stain on the loveseat. Ryan sat across from him and watched, every now and then looking like he wanted to say something, only to think better of it. The mask was pulled away to reveal black hair and blue eyes, ones that followed Jeremy pensively as he traced rescue missions on his skin.

Finally, he got the last of it, and collapsed backwards in relief. “Fuck. Hey, can you get me a-?”

Ryan was already up. He came back with a glass of water and a towel.

He took a grateful slurp, ignoring the way that Ryan’s eyes now perused the house. When he was done knocking it back, he said flatly, “you didn’t know this was a mercenary job, did you?”

“…No.” That was the honest answer, though Ryan at least had the decency not to shy away from Jeremy’s eyes. He looked like he was expecting a follow up to that, but when Jeremy didn’t give him one, he said, “so I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do now then. Do I leave or…?”

Jeremy sighed. “You can stay. Just park your car in the alley.”

Another big no no in the Thug Life Rulebook, but Jeremy didn’t think Ryan would do anything worse than take the money and run. Plus, it would be comforting to have someone make sure he didn’t die in his sleep.

Even now he was feeling woozy, and he began to drift steadily into unconcousness as he heard Ryan bustle around the house. Before escaping completely, he cracked an eye and said, “mask’s a good look.”

Ryan’s eyebrows lifted, visible even in the dark of the room, and Jeremy went to sleep thinking about how pleased he looked.


	2. The Sun is No Heavier When it Rises Than When it Sets

“Trevor! That was my foot, Trevor!”

At the sound of voices, Jeremy pressed himself against a shelf lined with DVDs, his heart leaping into his throat, the distant glow of emergency lights comforting him in shadow. The motion was just in time: seconds later multiple sets of feet scraped across the short carpet less than an isle away, their erratic beats coming closer. But, when he poked his head around the beige shelving rack, he found not the respondents to a silent alarm, but instead three figures keeping as close to the shadows as he was. As he squinted his eyes to see through the gloom, he was able to make out the distinctive shape of…

Well. _Superheroes_ was really the only way he could describe them.

All three were clad in plastic masks that didn’t cover their mouths, their path trailed by multi-colored capes. Jeremy couldn’t exactly make out exactly _what_ colors in the dark, but when he determined these were fellow intruders, he’d seen enough. Once they were past, he stepped from his hiding spot.

“Don’t move,” he said, pointing his gun at three unprotected backs.

All of them froze at once, one even obedient enough to keep his foot raised mid-stride. It might have been comical if Jeremy wasn’t so annoyed at the illogical appearance of his competition.

Slowly, the man closest to Jeremy turned and looked down at the pistol in his steady hands. “…Aw shizballs.”

“I told you we tripped an alarm,” the one in the back whispered to his friend. “We should have made sure it was off

“That was your job Fredo!” the last one said, sticking him with his shoulder.

It was the higher pitched voice Jeremy had first when he’d first noticed the group sneaking up on him, meaning the one with the dangerously blonde hair-part was “Trevor.”

Apparently their leader, Trevor whispered out the corner of his mouth, “ _not the time guys!_ ”

“Alfredo didn’t do his damn job,” last guy whined, to which Alfredo gave him a shove.

“Hey! I said don’t move!” Watching the conversation ping back and forth between his hostages was giving Jeremy a headache. He tightened his grip. “Who the hell are you guys, and why are you on my hit? And what’s with the _fucking_ outfits?”

“It’s our gimmick,” last guy said plainly. “Everybody’s got to have a gimmick, otherwise you’re just some shlub on the street. I mean, what about you? Who are you even supposed to be?”

Jeremy eyed him up, unconsciously throwing back his shoulders as took in his opponents. The man had a long waft of light hair over mask, and a tangle of matching curls for a beard that set him apart from his friends. His accent was English, but his blue plastic mask was sporting a distinctive **A**.

Relying on the gun in his hand and the dynamism of his presence, Jeremy said, “the name’s Rimmy Tim.”

“Not looking like that it’s not!” Alfredo chimed in. “You need some major style upgrades if you want to start doing robberies around here. I’m thinking some purple…bit of sea foam green…”

“That’s enough!” He turned his gun on Alfredo.

These guys were really starting to unnerve him. He was now holding the barrel a mere three feet from Alfredo’s chest, and the man looked at most mildly concerned. The other two weren’t much better, starting a small round of bickering now that Jeremy was distracted. There was something terribly wrong going on here, and Jeremy felt like he was stalling his way into a trap.

Trevor stepped forward, getting between Jeremy and his line of fire. “Well Rimmy Tim, it’s nice to meet you. We’re the Dusk Boys! And uh, sorry about your hit. We just thought this place was undefended.”

Jeremy and Ryan had concluded the exact same thing about the all-but-forgotten Kmart. At the thought, he suddenly remembered, _shit! Ryan!_ Jeremy was behind on their check in, the robbery dependent on letting Ryan know once he got the cases open so his partner could bring the car around. If he didn’t call soon, Ryan would assume something was wrong if he didn’t already.

It was as Jeremy’s hand trailed absently for his phone that Alfredo proved the Dusk Boys had no healthy sense of self-preservation. While Jeremy was debating what do with the mounting issue of a volatile partner and three unknown crazy people, Alfredo placed an elbow on the games case and immediately set off an alarm.

“Shit!” Jeremy yelped, the sudden noise causing his finger to twitch. The gun blasted, missing Trevor by inches.

“Run!” Trevor said, dashing down the isle. The other boys were gone seconds later, leaving Jeremy swiveling his head around in confusion.

“Whu-” he sputtered, left standing in the middle of the electronics department while whatever pathetic police force the neighborhood had was on its way. “You-! Dusk Boys!!!”

Dusk Boy #3 stopped and looked around with widened eyes. “Did he just become our nemesis?”

Trevor yelled back, “not now Gavin!”

“But look! He’s shaking his fist at us and everything!”

“Gav! Not! Now!” With that, Trevor grabbed Gavin’s wrist, and the three of them bolted from the store.

Later, as Jeremy stumbled gasping and exhausted into the passenger seat of Ryan’s LeBaron, sirens wailing so loudly they seemed to be coming from inside his own head, the driver raised an unamused eyebrow and said, “so it went well then?”

* * *

“And you’re sure they were there to rob the place? Not just random homeless people that happened to wander in?”

Jeremy shot Ryan a withering look and went back to shuffling through the discount rack. “I’m sure. They were prepared.”

“They were unarmed.” Ryan said, pulling a pair of tan work pants off its hanger.

“…Yeah.”

“And dressed like the Avengers.”

Jeremy made a face, but couldn’t deny it. “…Yeah.”

“And you got really scared so you let them run away-”

“Yes! Alright yes I know it sounds stupid!” Jeremy threw his hands up in the air, ignoring the annoyed look from the woman two racks over. “If you don’t believe me just say so.”

Ryan smirked “Of course I believe you Jeremy. This is just the sort of thing I need to give you shit for.”

“Hm.” Jeremy rolled his shoulders, letting out the pent-up annoyance in a grand sigh. Ryan was difficult to pin at times—despite his apparent taste for destruction, he had a remarkable sociability about him. At various points, he claimed to be a former theater kid, an IT professional, and armature model; Jeremy wasn’t if any of it was true. “Well. Thanks. But whatever was up with them it doesn’t matter, it’s not like we’re ever going to see them again.”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

They shopped another few minutes in silence, the thrift store purveying a sense of calm with its accumulated dust and vague smell of cat litter. Jeremy pulled out a purple blazer, examining the seams along the sleeves.

When Ryan caught sight of it, he cocked his brow with a, “You’re getting _that_?” His tone indicated he thought Jeremy would be better off wearing a burlap sack.

“Yeah,” Jeremy said, the epitome of casualness.

“… _Why_?”

“…No reason.” And Jeremy tucked it over his arm with purpose.

* * *

“Guys look! It’s Rimmy Tim!”

“Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Jeremy turned to see none other than the Dusk Boys, standing over the elaborate jewelry case that had been unguarded just a moment ago. They were armed this time at the very least, Trevor out in front ineptly holding a crowbar and Alfredo wielding a lead pipe.

“Lookin’ good Tim!” Alfredo called across the store, hands over his mouth in disregard for any semblance of stealth.

“Are you kidding? He looks bloody awful.” Gavin put his own hands over his mouth and yelled, “you look like fell into the vat at the fruit snack factory!”

Ryan gave a simpering grin that was three degrees short of pity. “I’m guessing those are your Dusk Boys.”

Jeremy groaned, only remembering not to drop his monkey wrench at the last moment. They looked away for _twelve seconds_ to secure the doors and somehow not only did those three idiots get past them, but they were halfway to winning the pot.

“How?” Jeremy said, gesturing madly at them. “How??”

“Could ask you the same bloody question!” For some reason, Gavin had taken it upon himself to be Jeremy’s emissary, their interaction getting more unbelievable by the second. “Are you following us Rimmy Tim?”

Jeremy sputtered for a good six seconds. Thankfully, through their months of partnership and a weird sort of comradery, Ryan always knew exactly what Jeremy needed to hear. “Can’t we just shoot them?”

“If only.”

In all honesty, they’d shot men for less, but something about this group made Jeremy think they were less than harmless. Plus, they’d recently lost the last of their weapons during an unfortunate swim in the Storm Drain. Maybe all they needed to do was put the fear of God in them. Maybe, Jeremy mused as he watched Trevor try and fail to break open the register, if he and Ryan sent a message, they’d stop being a goddamn nescience. He shot Ryan a look, and the mask acknowledged with a nod.

“Guys this thing is fucking me. It’s fucking me so hard.” Trevor was now leaned over the jewelry case, his hands lined with real lockpicks like he was in a goddamn Elder Scrolls game. It made a sudden snapping sound, which was followed by an, “I’m fucked!”

“Trevor getting laid over there,” Alfredo said, not noticing as Ryan and Jeremy began circling the outer perimeter of the store.

“No need to brag about it Treyco,” Gavin chimed in. “We’ve all had sex with Barb.”

“Oh harr-dee-harr, that’s so funny I’m just-” Trevor’s head suddenly flicked up. “Wait. _All_? All of us?” Gavin’s face puckered in on itself. “Alfredo! Did you fuck my girlfriend Alfredo??”

The pertinent and pressing question of who was fucking Trevor’s girlfriend was never answered, as Ryan made a lunge at the burglar in skinny jeans. Trevor shrieked, and at the same instant Jeremy swung a clean right hook at Gavin’s jaw. The little British shmuck went flying, and Jeremy quickly turned his attention to where Alfredo now stood dumbstruck and wearing several thousand dollars’ worth of rings. Before Alfredo could react, Jeremy grabbed him under the arm and attempting to wrestle the lead pipe out of his grip.

And, to his surprise, he felt Alfredo’s grip come loose, the scrawnier man bending all sorts of ways as their feet squeaked on polished wood floors. He barely put up fight at all, except for trying to escape Jeremy’s grasp. What had Jeremy been so afraid of? Why on earth would he find these people so vexing?

He looked over at Ryan just in time to watch his partner be thrown into an earring display.

The glass shattered. It was overwhelming, earsplitting, and Ryan’s body disappeared in the white reflections that exploded outward. “Shit…” Jeremy muttered, inaudible over the sound of the alarm now blaring through the store.

Trevor straightened up, briskly calling, “time to grab and go boys!”

Suddenly Alfredo slipped out of Jeremy’s grasp, and Jeremy didn’t notice in time to stop him. Desperately, he clutched at corner of Alfredo’s cape, only to have it whisked away before he got ahold. He could see Trevor out the corner of his eye, stuffing handfuls of earrings into his pockets before booking it, as well as Gavin (when the fuck did he stand back up? That hit should have taken him out cold) cracking open another case and raiding the diamonds inside. Within seconds, the situation was once again out of Jeremy’s control in a sickening case of Déjà vu.

At this point, Jeremy was just about ready to turn in his badge. But, when he saw Gavin collecting what should have been _Jeremy’s_ ill-gotten gains and moving back to his Boys, his eyes glazed over. This time when he body checked the other man, he didn’t give him the chance to escape, pinning him against the wall by the front of his costume. The force of his body hitting the case shook the necklaces inside, offering up what must be a mystical tinkling noise if the alarm hadn’t invaded every space in Jeremy’s eardrums.

Jeremy glared through the plastic mask, locking on the green eyes just beneath it. “Why do you keep following me?” he demanded, knuckles digging into collarbone.

Gavin blinked at him for a moment, like for once he was genuinely thinking at what Jeremy was asking. But then the impression passed, and he shrugged, “dunno. Guess it’s fate, innit?”

Jeremy’s mouth was open, but there’s nothing he could say. The high, repetitive drone of the alarm went on and on, and finally with the encroaching inevitability of being in a busted jewelry store in the middle of a failed heist, he let Gavin go. Trevor and Alfredo were nowhere to be seen, and when Gavin fled from his hands, he went not for the exit but instead to the monstrous display in the center of the store. He hauled himself up onto a case, and with a blink, disappeared, closing behind a white ceiling tile as went. Some impossibly white sneakers left an image burned in Jeremy’s retina.

He walked over to Ryan, kicking aside bits of glass as he went. Shards embedded themselves in Ryan’s jacket, leaving him looking like a particularly shiny porcupine—as Jeremy hauled him out of his mess, he marveled that Trevor probably could have killed him.

“Ryan,” Jeremy said as he grabbed a hold of his arm. “You got fucking demolished.”

“He was so slippery!” Ryan whined, about to wipe the glass off his sleeve before thinking better of it.

“Tell me about it,” Jeremy agreed. It was about time to call the whole mission a wash. “So. Consensus?”

Ryan gritted his teeth beneath the mask. “Fuck the Dusk Boys.”

* * *

It went on like that for some time. It felt like every other job was interrupted by the walking comedy of errors somehow floundering their way to victory despite increasingly improbable situations and even less probable outfits. Once, they even had the audacity to show up dressed as a boy band. Ryan reasoned it was bound to happen with both teams muscling in on the same six blocks of territory, but Jeremy privately believed they were simply cursed.

By the time March rolled around, Jeremy was at his wit’s end. He was back in a funk, texting the number that never wrote back, when his screen was held hostage by a message across the top. A message from someone who was apparently already in his phone.

> Heyo! Was wondering if you’d like to meet up some time? Maybe grab some bevs?

Jeremy blinked at it, hovering in his previews before fluttering away, leaving him wondering if he had just imagined that. Suddenly agitated, he opened the contact simply labeled _Gavino_. He was about to ask _who are you and how did you get my number?_ but rather than being threatening, this sounded more like the sender was…asking him out? He shook his head, wondering if he’d randomly given his number to some guy in a bar and now had to reap the consequences.

> i’m really sorry, just got a new phone. who is this?
> 
> Aw, no you didn’t Rimmy Tim, don’t lie to me. :P But jsk, this is Gavin! You know, from the Dusk Boys?

As the words permeated Jeremy’s brain, his confusion was overpowered by unrelenting _hate_.

> HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET INTO MY PHONE YOU PIECE OF SHIT? WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK YOU PSYCHOPATH
> 
> Oh I just nabbed it for a little while when we saw each other at the go-cart place, thought I could use it to message you if we ever wanted to talk business. Which now I do! So it worked out

The initial anger solidified into a hardened annoyance.

> what on earth could we possibly talk about. what business
> 
> It’s kind of sensitive. Is it alright if I explain over dinner?

Jeremy took a steadying breath just so he wouldn’t explode again. This was insane, and it was official: his life was a nightmare.

> This better be fucking good

Jeremy showed up to the “pub” a half hour early to case the joint, but it was an utterly normal bar, not even moderately seedy. He’d told Ryan where he was going of course, he wasn’t an idiot, but other than that he was still so pissed over this stupid Dusk Boy worming into his life that he hadn’t prepared much. He ended up sitting down at a table, still stewing, when Gavin walked in.

He had on a purple shirt and a pair of sunglasses, but other than that he looked so…normal. It took Jeremy aback, and he let Gavin sit down with only a mumbled _hello_ in response to Gavin’s more verbose greeting.

“Kind of boring place, innit?” Gavin asked. Jeremy still didn’t acquiesce in the way of conversation, and Gavin took it as an opportunity to launch head on into the merits of a good pub. He talked about everything, about the area, about a weird guy in a ballcap he saw on the way on the way in, about hey did Jeremy watch Game of Thrones last night?

So engrossed was he with how odd it all was, it took until their food arrived for Jeremy to finally say, “Gavin. You wanted to talk with me about something?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Gavin’s frown puckered in on itself, and that look made Jeremy realize how bad this must be. “The Dusk Boys are through.”

“Through?” Jeremy practically choked on his burger.

“Yeah.” Gavin dragged his fry through some catsup. “Broken up.”

“But…why?”

Gavin looked up wryly. “I don’t know if you noticed this, but we’re kind of a disaster.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Jeremy frowned. “You guys do kind of never get anything done.”

“Hard to run an operation like that, us all bringing out the worst in each other,” Gavin said. “So we agreed it’s for the best if we all go our separate ways.” His smile turned sheepish. “Which brings me to you. I was kind of hoping…I could get a gig.”

“ _What?_ ” Jeremy demanded, louder than was appropriate even in a pub. “You’re trying to bum a job off _me_? I _hate_ you Gavin.”

“I know,” Gavin said cheerfully. “But it’s in like the nemesis sort of way, where it’s all actually just a good laugh in the end.”

“It really isn’t.”

“Plus,” Gavin went on, suddenly dejected, “you’re really the only person I know in the biz outside of Treyco and Fraidy-doo. And I may have…run up some debts getting supplies for the Boys.”

“‘ _In the biz_ ’ are you a mobster now? Look-” Jeremy rubbed his temples. “That tells me why you want to join up with _me_ , why should I partner with _you_?”

“I’m good at lots of stuff.” Gavin waved a fry for emphasis. “I can cause a ruckus.”

“I’m insulted you think I can’t cause my own ruckus.”

“In that outfit, you’re damn right.” Gavin didn’t allow Jeremy time for an offended scoff. “Look, your boyfriend can’t be around all the time. I’ll do whatever: explosives, security, someone else to watch you in a gunfight. I’ll even run deals if you want, I can be pretty intimidating.”

“Ryan’s not my boyfriend.”

“That his name?” Gavin asked, and Jeremy mentally smacked himself. “I’m not picky is what I’m saying.”

Jeremy hesitated. His head told him to walk right out of the (actually pretty fantastic smelling) pub and never look at Gavin’s stupid mug again. But on the other hand…where else was he going to find someone both this desperate and this weirdly fond of him? Granted, not much could be said for Gavin’s competence but…the opportunity was too good to pass up. He remembered the promise he had made to himself: find the pieces, put them together.

“Alright,” he said, and pointed an accusing finger as Gavin perked. “But this is a trial run. You’re going to stay some place where you can’t screw up our next mark too badly, and we’ll see how you do.”

Gavin took no heed, and wrangled Jeremy’s outstretched hand into a shake. “You got it Timmy! I swear you won’t regret it.”

“Uhg. Fine. But if we’re going to be on the same side, you’re going to have to call me Jeremy.”

“You got it, Rimmy Jeremy.”


	3. You May Collar the Wolf, but Do Not Be Surprised When the Cord That Cannot Exist is No Longer There

“I think I should start a crew.”

“…What exactly does that mean?” Looking up from his round ofModern Warfare, Ryan blinked at Jeremy. Jeremy feigned casualness, staring intently at the small carburetor on his workbench.

“Just…” Jeremy made a vague motion. “I think we could make something out of this, you know? Gavin’s here all the time now, and it feels like we’re turning into some sort of team. You feel it, right? You like Gavin.”

“Gavin and I do engage in human interaction, yes.” Ryan set down his controller. “What does that have to do with Crew?”

“Not Crew, acrew.”

“Accrue?”

Jeremy spun on the swivel, the squeak of plastic on plastic filling the room. He waved his hand and said, “a group that runs together, watches each other’s backs. And…I don’t know. Does heists and stuff.”

“Jeremy, that’s called a gang.”

Jeremy threw a rubber stress balls at Ryan’s head.

Well accustomed by now, Ryan moved his head aside and let it bounce off the opposite wall. “What are you going to do with a gang? We’re not exactly running large operations here.”

A few more robberies here, intercepting some other dealer’s supplies there, most of what they generated paid the bills and went to staving off Gavin’s—extravagant—debt.

“But we _could_ ,” Jeremy insisted. It was all he could do to keep from moving his arms wildly along with his imagination. “We could start making a name for ourselves, pull together something _real_.”

Ryan stared at him, that look that could either be boredom or contemplation written into the strength of his jaw. Despite himself, Jeremy realized he was holding his breath; he hadn’t quite come to terms with how much Ryan’s approval now meant to him.

With a slow breath out the nose, Ryan tilted his head. “Heists, huh? That does actually sound…fun.”

A smile found its way to the corner of Jeremy’s mouth. “By fun do you mean you get to kill a lot of people?”

“Well I mean, if they get in the _way_ …”

It shouldn’t make him laugh—because deep down he knew there was something newly wrong about Ryan, something he had put there—but he _did_ laugh and kicked his partner lightly in the shoe. The unset faded, and Jeremy swung back around, placing his hands among the wires with a confidence he hadn’t realized he was missing.

* * *

Jeremy left the supermarket with one hand full of grocery bag and the other managing both his car keys and an open bottle of Four Loko. Apparently, the only thing capable of stopping him was a man with a cane and a face that screamed he was willing to kick anyone’s ass at a moment’s notice. “Hey. I heard you’re starting a crew.”

Jeremy blinked, looking over his shoulder and then back at the man who couldn’t be more than a year older than him. “Uh, I might be. Why?”

“Because I want in, dumbass. Jesus Christ, why else would I be ganking you outside the Walmart? I’m not selling girl scout cookies. How else you want me to join up, huh? Am I gunna pick your pocket and then you act all impressed and offer me a job? Kiss my ass.”

The man never took a breath between words, an unending tempest as he stood stock-still in the middle of the parking lot. He was strongly built, with a mop of curly brown hair under a beanie, but no other way to pick him out of a crowd. Jeremy found himself disoriented by the torrent of both information and insults pouring from the man.

He was still talking. “You’re going to talk shit at me? You’re the one dressed like bozo the conservative clown while day drinking in the parking lot of shopping center hell. Those all for you, Hard Boiled?”

That, at least, was something Jeremy was used to answering. “It’s called alcoholism. You should try it, might loosen you up.” He didn’t give the other man a chance to answer, instead confronting him with, “so all this because you want to join the crew?”

“Yeah,” beanie huffed out. “ _Fuck_.”

“Well what do you do?” Jeremy took another swig of the Four Loko. Not the best place to hold a job interview, but this wasn’t a normal applicant. “And how did you even hear about that?”

“I’m Michael.” That wasn’t either of the things Jeremy asked, but before he could point it out, Michael launched into another tirade. “I’m the guy in the room. Don’t worry about tech, I got my own van. Nothing gets by me, and no one in Los Santos has _shit_ on me, don’t listen to what Nova says.”

As far as Jeremy was aware, the idea of a “crew” hadn’t left his private conversation with Ryan. He eyed Michael up and down, his curiosity piqued. “I don’t know what that means, but cool.” He pointed at Michael’s cane. “There a sword in there?”

“No, but you make any more bitch comments and I’ll beat your ass with it.”

In a (not so rare) bout of poor decision making, Jeremy decided he liked Michael.

“Alright,” Jeremy said, shrugging like he did this on the daily. “I’m willing to give it a try.”

“Damn right you are.” There was no hint of any gratitude, or even the _idea_ that Jeremy might turn him down. “We’ll catch you tomorrow. Big van, can’t miss it.” With that he turned, and began taking himself to who knows where.

“Hey, wait! I didn’t tell you where-” But despite his gait, Michael was a fast motherfucker. Jeremy had thought they were going to discuss prices, or contracts, or… “wait. Who’s ‘we’? Michael, who’s we?”

* * *

“So how much is this guy going to cost?” Ryan asked as they waited in the sun outside the Suburban.

“I uh…didn’t ask.”

Ryan didn’t say anything, but Jeremy could _feel_ the reproachful look he knew Ryan was dispensing his direction. Although the mask was on more often than not these days, he found it didn’t impede the ability to tell when Ryan was disappointed in him.

Although he had some balls for making them wait this long, Michael thankfully didn’t delay for another second. There was an earsplitting screech and the smell of burning rubber, the shaking of molecules sending three figures to the ground as they braced for an unseen attack. Gravel made a home in Jeremy’s palm an unmarked white van came tearing around the corner.

Before they could leap back, the rear end of the van swerved to face them, the double doors bursting open to reveal none other than the madman himself. “Hey,” Michael said, standing in front of them. “We fucking going then?”

“Yeah, I guess-” Jeremy said before Gavin cut in.

“We’re doing it, but what are _you_ doing? Exactly?” He leaned against Ryan, but despite his question, didn’t seem too alarmed by very nearly being run over.

“What the fuck kind of question is that?” Michael said, fixing Gavin with a glare. “I’m the guy in the room. I watch shit on the screen and I tell you how to not die.”

“Like Oracle?” Gavin asked, unperturbed.

“…Of Delphi?” The Ryan looked to the side at Gavin.

“ _No_ Ryan, like Batman. You’re such a pillock.”

Jeremy ignored them and spoke directly to their newest recruit. “If you have…comms and stuff, we’ll take ‘em. We’re trying to start shit between Funhaus and Chow Chop, and if we screw up their deal this afternoon, they’re more than eager to start pointing fingers at one another.”

Michael stared dully at him, as though he honestly couldn’t give a shit. To be fair, that may have just been his natural expression—he did have an acute case of resting bitch face.

While Gavin and Ryan were starting to bicker over where best Gavin could run “distraction,” Jeremy rubbed his neck and said, “…who the hell was driving, by the way?”

As soon as he said it, a round-faced woman leaned out the driver’s seat and said, “hello! I’m Lindsay.”

“That’s Lindsay,” Michael said helpfully. “Don’t worry about her, she’s going to be sitting on her hands if anything that actually needs competence happens.”

“Actually,” Lindsay put in, “I’m going to be playing some Donkey Kong while you guys are doing that.” She held up a controller that was not in her hand a second ago.

Ryan gave Jeremy the Look™ and Jeremy felt he deserved it.

Within minutes Michael had distributed microphones to everyone, Gavin had managed to almost strangle himself with the cord, and Lindsay had sat down in the middle of the van and turned on her Nintendo 64. (And, was it Jeremy’s imagination, or were there at least _three_ other consoles crammed into various corners of the already wire-laden van? No, that was just too much for him to take in right now.) Somewhere along the way there was a costume change, and now _Michael_ was fighting with Gavin and Ryan attempted to discreetly slide his mic underneath his mask. It was a delicate balance of not revealing his face to the strangers, while also not trying to _look_ like he wasn’t revealing his face to strangers—a little song and dance that wasn’t going too well.

When they were set, and the four (five?) infiltrators spread across the street from the Suburban and into the abandoned office building, Jeremy couldn’t get over the feeling of incredible helplessness. Why did he keep doing this? Every time things seemed to get settled, he just wanted more. Was that how to rest of his life was doomed to go? Constantly collecting unknown variables until his operations were bound to fall in on themselves?

He might have to find out.

Less than twenty minutes later, the sound of gunfire chased Jeremy out into the hallway, his shoes slamming on old carpet and punctuated by the _rat-tat-tat_ of incoming bullets. He pressed himself against a wall to catch his breath—only for a second—but in his brief hesitation someone rushed from the other direction and tackled him to the ground. With a jolt, Jeremy braced himself, but the deathblow never came, and instead the window above exploded. Ryan swung his arm above them, shielding the worst of the falling debris.

“You know,” he said, his rough voice closer to Jeremy’s ear than it had ever been, “ if we survive this, it’ll be the first successful job we’ve pulled in a while.”

They clambered to a sitting position, getting into cover below the window that had just blown.

“I’m coming to you guys!” Gavin’s voice bled into Jeremy’s brain. “Second floor, right?”

“You’re going the wrong way, dumbass,” Michael drawled. Or at least, the closest thing to a drawl he could formulate. “No. Nope, go left. There you go. Asshole.”

The fire door across from Jeremy and Ryan banged open, and Gavin was immediately almost riddled. He ducked against the frame, bullets whizzing over his head. “C’mon! Way I came from is clear.”

“Wrong again dipshit,” Michael countered. “Just get into the stairwell: I’ll get you out.”

There was doubt—suddenly the lives of his whole crew hinging on one new guy, and Jeremy kicked himself for his parking lot based decisions—but that was overridden by the fear that hesitating would kill them all much faster. He pushed himself off the wall, ignoring the stripe of blood he left behind, and followed the instructions down the stairs.

Michael led them through corridors, having them double back and leap through windows and kill only when they had the numbers. The office started to feel like a maze, same three carpet patterns over and over again until finally they were able to round the glass doors and find the white van waiting for them. The driver’s seat was empty, but that didn’t stop them: Ryan sliding across the hood and slingshotting his way onto the gas pedal.

“Go go go!” Michael yelled out the back doors as he hauled Jeremy and Gavin in by their scruffs. Ryan didn’t need to be told a fourth time, and gunned it, leaving behind the office building as gunshots chased them away. “Fuck yeah!” Michael said, and punched the van roof. “You guys actually didn’t die. That was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen.”

“It was pretty cool,” Lindsay remarked, sitting cross-legged on the floor and not looking up. “But now that you’re back, any of you guys know how to turn on the power in Frantic Factory?”

* * *

There was an auto body shop on the east side who’s owner liked Jeremy and didn’t ask a lot of questions, and important combination for any up and coming crew leader. Caleb patted Jeremy cheerfully on the arm before heading back into the garage.

“That guy was really rolling out the welcome wagon for you, huh?” Michael was leaned against the wall with his arms folded, giving Jeremy the stink eye.

Jeremy shrugged. “I would hope so. I used to work here.”

That made Michael neither more nor less pissed, and Jeremy was starting to get the idea that was just his natural state of being. It certainly didn’t seem to bother Lindsay, who he’d learned was actually Michael’s wife and just seemed to be a permanent fixture wherever he went. Currently she was back inside, watching Caleb pick bullets out of the fender while the rest of the crew decompressed.

“Sooooo…” Jeremy toyed with the word while he thought of best how to ask. “I never really found out how much you cost.”

Michael made a general noise of disgust. “I said I wanted in the crew, moron. Weren’t you paying attention?”

Jeremy checked over his shoulder. The street was mostly abandoned, warm sunlight searing the pavement in the area outside the garage’s shadow. But something about Michael kept him going. “I mean OK, I get that. I guess…why?”

Michael stood completely, his square glasses flaring white. Silence didn’t sit right on him, and he stared at Jeremy without betraying his thoughts, calculating risks quietly. Cautiously, he said, “you guys worked it out today.”

“Uh, what we were planning to do, yeah.” Jeremy watched Michael back. “Why?”

When Michael finally spoke a second time, it was through a half-chewed lip. “We need protection. I could survive maybe, but Lindsay’s a…disaster. The second they start thinking of her as a liability, she could disappear. Just like that.” Michael snapped his fingers. “They don’t want scraps, they want every person ironed out until they’re an efficient killing machine.”

Jeremy swallowed, not liking where this was headed. “And could you fill me in on who exactly, ‘they’ are?”

“…My full name is Michael Vincent Jones.”

Despite the summer air, the street suddenly felt very cold. Jones wasn’t exactly an uncommon last name, but here in Los Santos it had a reflexive connection with one family only. Peter Jones and his ilk ran the Yellow Suns, which calling a _crew_ would be an insult; the Suns were a practical syndicate, holding operations that crossed national borders on principal. “Peter’s your…”

“Brother,” Michael finished. “Big bro,” he added voice dripping with such irony Jeremy couldn’t help but wince. “Maybe the two of us could make a break for it, but Pete would never let the kids go with the weird fucking bloodline thing he’s got going on.”

Oh great, there were kids involved. Jeremy felt his stomach sinking with every word, but couldn’t find it in him to interrupt.

“We need to join up with another crew,” Michael went on. Then, he looked at Jeremy, the first hint of softness he’d seen on that freckled face. “You watch our backs, we won’t disappoint you.”

“I don’t know…” Jeremy let out, the reflected sunlight off the shop’s window blotting his vision. He felt sweat on the back of his neck.

Michael’s brow furrowed. “We’re good Tim. Even Lindsay when you’re in really deep shit, she’ll save your ass if it comes down to it. And given what I’ve seen today, you guys want us.” When Jeremy still paused, he pressed, in a less strained voice than before, “and I know people. People that can make getting heard in this city a hell of a lot easier.”

Jeremy considered it. It had been great having Michael at his back, more than great, and he’d had a taste of that security he didn’t want to go back. But on the other hand, he wasn’t sure his budding crew could take on the weight of a supergiant.

Ultimately, he let out a huff. “Fine. We’ll use you. But!” Jeremy held up a finger. “No stealing contacts from Jones; the less attention we attract the better, at least until we have our own weight to throw around. We don’t want him falling on us before we’re ready.”

Michael nodded. Jeremy got the impression he’d just gained a little respect in Michael’s eyes.

“So we’re in?” Michael asked.

“You’re in,” Jeremy agreed.

And that was that. No fanfare, no buying Ryan like twenty extra cases of Diet Coke to make up for bringing another sordid enemy into the fold: just a pair of new cohorts leaning against the wall, enjoying the sunset and muffled Donkey Kong sound effects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this planned out before the jonses had 2 kids so a) I predicted the future and b) they’re not their real life kids it’s actually Max and Space Kid


	4. Rider Upon the Pale Horse

Stepping back from the whiteboard, Jeremy capped his marker. “There. What do you guys think?”

“All you did was circle the words ‘Fake AH’,” Ryan said, sat in the front-row swivel chair.

“ _Yes_ ,” Jeremy said. “It’s the crew name, _Ryan_.”

“What does AH even stand for?” Jack asked, index fingers pressed against her mouth.

“It- you-” Jeremy flubbed. “It doesn’t have to mean anyth- hot dog doesn’t have any _dog_ in it alright? Look-”

Jack raised her eyebrows. “Are you saying the H stands for hot dog?”

Jeremy sighed, wondering why he even bothered.

Beside from the newly acquired whiteboard, the house had changed a lot in the past year. Now there were succulents and cacti where Ryan had left his mark, and the garden out back was in full bloom. There were signs of dozens of regularly rotating lodgers and vagabonds as the little home with the creaking front gate had become a hub of a blooming gang. Pretty good considering it was a place where the front step broke so often that someone had stuffed a Yellow Page underneath it and called it a day.

“Clearly,” Ryan said, “Rimmy Tim here is referencing the 1980s band ‘Aha’. Which is in good taste, well done Jeremy.”

“Yes,” Jack agreed, “quite good taste.”

Ryan’s new friend was sitting at Jeremy’s workbench, which wouldn’t bother him except with how easily she did it. For as long as they’d known each other, it had taken until now for Ryan to feel comfortable taking off his mask on a regular basis—but he’d known Jack for barely a month and suddenly he felt completely comfortable around her. They had met in Siege or something, and ever since then she’d been hanging out at least as much as the _other_ people who didn’t live there.

“Well,” Ryan said as he slapped his hands on his knees and rose, “as productive as this has been I’m getting back to work.” Ryan still kept a part-time job at the local theater, which was completely unnecessary with the amount the crew brought in. Jeremy was starting to suspect it was only because he didn’t like to pay for facepaint. “Oh, by the way, thought you should know: Monki’s back in the country.”

Jeremy blinked, the clear expectation that Monki was someone he should know. “Uh. Who?”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “Really Jeremy? Most dangerous mercenary in all of Los Santos and you haven’t heard of _Monki_?”

“Hey,” Jeremy bristled. “I’ve only been doing this for a year, alright? I can’t know every shmuck who this city decides to jerk off to for a day.”

Ryan shook his head. “Monki’s not just some up and comer, she’s been the most sought after merc for _years_. She has a higher killcount than the rest of the crew combined. You have to have heard of her—and don’t give me that newcomer shit! I’ve been doing this just as long as you.”

That he had. How he’d thrown himself so deeply into the violent culture of the city’s underbelly while also being a gardener who kept the house smelling like apple cider vinegar, Jeremy couldn’t say. Ryan was his main point of reference for most things, how he kept in touch with the finer cultural points of Los Santos.

“Alright, fine,” Jeremy said. “I’ll look into seeing if she’d consider working for somebody as lowly as us. Happy?”

“What? No!” Ryan looked aghast. “I told you that so you can _stay away_ from her. We want to attract as little off her attention as possible if the Suns put out a hit. She’ll be less likely to take it if she doesn’t know who we are.”

“…Well what if we got to her _first_ …”

“No Jeremy,” Ryan told him sternly. “She’s way outside our price range.”

Jeremy folded his arms into sullen silence, but didn’t take the argument further. He could feel it again: that need, the urge to _acquire_. It wasn’t what brought most people to Los Santos (which was usually sticky fingers). What Jeremy had was the compulsion to build something, taking the parts where he needed.

Seeing that Jeremy and Ryan were in a glare off, Jack stood up. “Well if this meeting is adjured, I’ll head off too. Let me know if you need any more help spitballing!” With that she was out the door, and Jeremy wondered what had made _her_ suddenly so chipper.

* * *

When Jeremy began his own research on Monki, he concluded that Ryan was absolutely right. The underside of Los Santos revered her in equal parts fear and idolization. The way people talked about her it was like she wasn’t even human, just some killing machine.

“No one knows what she looks like,” Jeremy was explaining to the room at large. “She wears a biker helmet all the time and only talks to people over text.”

“You mean like in Durarara?” Fiona asked from the floor with her phone above her face.

“What the fuck is a Durarara?” Michael said, not looking from the building blueprints he had scattered around him on the floor.

“Michael! I’m going to kill you!”

While Fiona began shoving anime pictures from her phone into Michael’s face, Sarah said, “are you sure you want to go through with this?”

Jeremy pursed his lips. He really, really wanted to go for it, but Sarah was at least as in touch with the underground as Ryan, and he trusted her judgment. She was one of the irregulars, the occasional hires like Fiona and Kent that kept the FAHC from getting overrun during busy months. He knew he should listen to her intuition.

Instead, he said, “I’m sure.”

She nodded, and said, “alright. Then I may know how to get in contact with her.”

Which was how Jeremy ended up pacing nervously around a parking in the middle of Little Seoul. It was broad daylight, but it wasn’t like that would stop Monki if she decided he wasn’t worth her time. Which she wouldn’t. Jeremy could be very charming; how else could you explain the absolute cacophony of losers he had managed to acquire?

He could feel the heat through his sneakers, but he wasn’t about to give up and head inside the department store, if when the sweat beaded up underneath his Stetson. If he caved to discomfort, to minor inconveniences, why would anyone think he was worth their time?

There was the tearing of tires, and through the hedge that kept the lot from the near desolate road, he saw a streak of teal.

The bike rounded the corner and sped toward him, stopping only when its rider stuck down a leg and slid to a standstill, the smell of burned rubber hot in his nose. Shouldering his resolve, Jeremy didn’t flinch. It reminded him of not to long ago, when another vehicle had come so close to running him down, and that had turned out well, hadn’t it?

The rider stopped, looking a Jeremy for a second.

“You Monki?” he asked, in lieu of something pointed.

The helmet held its pause, then gave a short nod.

Jeremy thought he had gotten good at reading expressionless masks attached to practical statues, but apparently that was just Ryan. Monki’s helmet was the same shade of teal as her bike, glinting in the harsh sun as it reflected Jeremy back at himself. She had the whole getup: matching gloves and boots, with white shoulder pads over a florescent green shirt. The only thing missing was a biker jacket, which the absence failed to hide the skull glaring along her left collarbone. Somehow, it felt like the skull was staring at him too.

“So,” he said, getting the feeling like he shouldn’t look too desperate. “You’ve been out of the limelight for a while.”

Monki didn’t reply, and for a second Jeremy thought he had slipped up. But then she reached into her pocket, pulled out a phone with a little Tetris charm on it, and tapped something in. Jeremy’s phone buzzed.

M: Been in Australia for a bit

Jeremy stared down at the text cradled in his palm. Holy shit. This really _was_ Anime.

He looked between his phone and Monki a few times. Was this real? Her location for the past four years had been a complete mystery to all of Sarah’s informants, and here she was offering it up like pleasant conversation. Monki started typing something again, and Jeremy snapped closed the jaw he’d left hanging open.

M: So you called me here with a deal

There, that was something he could comprehend. “I’ve heard you’re the best. The Fakes want your services.”

> Never heard of you

“You will,” he promised. “The name’s Rimmy Tim. Fakes have been spinning our wheels for a while, and here you came right when we were planning something big. Something that’s going to bring the city to its knees. Like a sign.” There, equal parts flattery and leaving something to chew on.

She tilted her head, still inscrutable.

> Sounds like you’re hungry

Keeping the twitch in his lip to a minimum, Jeremy met his own gaze in the visor’s reflection. The phrase “hungry” was kicked around often enough, if not by Ryan then by Sarah. In Los Santos, it’d come to refer to crews with eyes bigger than their stomach, egomaniac leaders who didn’t know how to stick in their only little corner of the city and be grateful for what they had. The comparison, understandably, made Jeremy flinch.

“We know our limits,” he said, pissed the biker had already gotten under his skin. “And we’ve got a good foundation. We’ve got someone for anything, just hoping to expand in quantity, not quality.”

> If you’ve had someone for anything, you’d send a better diplomat rather than the big man himself

Ouch, okay. Not only a dig at his ego, but a reminder that the crew wasn’t as harmonious as he’d like them to be, at least on the Monki issue. He shrugged, and slipped out a, “they sent me because I’m the only one immune to your feminine charms.”

There was a split second where he was afraid she’d take that in the exact _opposite_ way he’d intended, but then her whole body gave a little jerk of laughter. Her shoulders were shaking in mild amusement and Jeremy realized he really had _no_ idea how to read her. This whole time he’d thought she was staring stoically at him, but as he watched her silent convulsions, he felt he was back at square one.

Still laughing slightly, she picked up her phone.

> You seem like a good guy. And maybe you and your friends are going places. But you’re still hungry

“We can pay you well,” Jeremy spat out quickly, worried he’d lost her. “If anyone’s already put in an offer-” Before he could finish, Monki began crafting a new message, and he cut himself off.

> Don’t name any price you can’t hold up, Dooley

Jeremy’s blood ran cold. He hadn’t told her his name.

> I wouldn’t get too full of yourself in a city like this. The bigger the head, the bigger the target

She revved her engine, and the noise nearly made Jeremy drop his phone. “Wait! I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot but I really-”

> Don’t worry about me picking sides in your little fight. I’ve had a very eye opening vacation.
> 
> That doesn’t mean let your guard down, though. I’ll be around. Play smart.

It came instantly, as though she’d typed it up and waited to hit send. With that, she revved a second time, and peeled out the way she came. He watched her disappear down the street, leaving him feeling like a melon with its insides scooped out and left in a dumpster. The hopelessness was set with confusion, not sure whether to take her parting words as a threat or friendly advice. He shook his head hopelessly, wiped sweat off his brow, and turned back to his car.

* * *

After Jeremy had failed to court Monki, Ryan laid into the biggest ‘I told you so’ speech Jeremy had ever received, to which Jeremy had taken to sulking instead of acting like a proper crew leader. Uhg. Maybe that’s what Monki had been talking about. Ryan insisted that she was certainly joining up with someone else by now, so after some heated words, they hadn’t spoken to each other the past few days. Jeremy knew now wasn’t the time for moping, but he honestly wasn’t in mood to be the bigger person.

To work off steam, he vented. Same person as always, and as Jeremy finished typing a summary of the past week, he thought grimly that at least _he_ was a good listener.

“Who are you always texting?”

The voice over his shoulder made him jump, and he bobbled his phone until it finally landed back in safe hands. He looked to the other side of the armrest where Jack was blinking at him curiously.

“Um…” It wasn’t like he had been _hiding_ it exactly, just no one had ever asked before. “Just an old…almost friend.”

“Someone who was almost a friend or someone who was almost a friend?” she asked.

“You just said the same thing twice,” Jeremy said.

“There was an inflection.” Jack crossed in front of him, plopping down on the unclaimed half of loveseat, old stains a blotchy reminder of Jeremy’s first kill. “Sounds like there’s a story in there.”

“Not really,” Jeremy said, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s just a…guy I used to work with. Back at my first garage, different city.” It felt more like a different reality. “We were…I don’t know. Something. But also not anything, you know?”

“Doesn’t look like he’s returning the effort,” Jack pointed out, gesturing at his phone.

“No. That’s about par for the course.” Jeremy sighed. “We orbited each other but I could never tell if he actually felt anything. Not just for me, but literally like _anything_. When I left he said just message him whenever I needed him and I did but…fuck. I don’t know. It stopped being like I’m talking to him and more like…just my memory of him. Like he’s going to stay exactly how I left him, just taking whatever shitty words I throw his way until I die and that version of him disappears.”

Jeremy huffed, winded when the words had all come out in a rush. He hadn’t talked about Liberty City in a long time, and maybe never on that particular tale, but something about Jack was surprisingly easy to talk to.

She looked thoughtful, not just her usual comfortable demeanor, but genuine contemplation. “Sounds like you’re at peace with it.”

“I guess,” he shrugged. “We all have our weird stuff going on. Who’s pointing at something and saying ‘there! That’s totally the healthy way to deal with it!’ compared to anything else.” He shrugged again.

“Of course,” she agreed. “Personally, I tend to work out my woes with society by performing violent actions on the general public.”

“No you don’t,” Jeremy said, wrinkling his brow. “You work at a fucking animal shelter.”

“I know. I was making fun of you.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, but wasn’t offended. “Great, glad I spilled my heart out to you just to have tear me a new one.”

“You’re fine Jeremy,” she assured. “You were just being angsty. I think you’ve got the right of the whole dealing with shitty people thing, actually. I can sort of respect it.”

“Well,” he sighed, “sort of respect is close to respect.”

“It’s what you’re getting.”

* * *

Sometimes, he just knew. Jeremy could stand in one spot and _feel_ when something was broken, when something was about to be wrong. He had shoved himself against the back of an ice cream shop to wait out the worst of the rain, brim pulled down over his face for all the good it did him. The staff had taken out the trash in the past hour, black garbage bags pounded on by the endless thrum and watched by a man really wishing he had called an Uber. It was there that he felt it: that deep sink in his gut as the world seemed too dark and too cold for anything good to go on in it. One of the bags had ripped, pink ice cream leaking onto the street, flowing between the tile as it mixed with rain.

When he got home, Gavin’s devastated face greeted him, an indistinct array of murmuring people in the living room behind him. He said plainly, with a hollow in his throat,“Jarren’s dead.”

It took a moment for the news to sink in, but when it did, all Jeremy could do was sink onto the loveseat with a muttered, “ _shit_.”

Jarren was their tail on the Yellow Suns, assigned to work in the storehouse where everybody in the world knew the Suns shipped their product. If the Suns had discovered him, then they recognized the Fakes and were willing to do something about it.

“That means they’re starting to make moves,” Jeremy said to no one in particular.

“A canary in the coal mine,” Gavin remarked darkly.

Jeremy snapped his head at him. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t send him there to _die_ -”

“We know, Jeremy,” Sarah said softly. “We’re just all feeling it right now.”

Jeremy looked around the room. Michael and Lindsay were there, wrists touching as they both watched him out the corners of their eyes. It was maybe the most physically intimate he’d ever seen them. Fiona had her elbows on her knees, chin pressed sharp into folded hands, and even Steffie was there—curled in Gavin’s beanbag and holding back tears.

“Where’s Ryan?” he asked Gavin, who shook his head.

“Couldn’t reach him. Storm’s real bad.”

Jeremy looked down at his own phone to see Gavin was right: no signal. As soon as it came back he’d probably get two-dozen texts retelling him the news like a belated broadcast over a decimated battlefield. But that’s not what he cared about right now.

“I know where Ryan is,” Jeremy said, standing up.

“You’re going to go find him alone?” Gavin asked when he saw Jeremy grabbing his strap. “Shouldn’t we-”

“No,” Jeremy told him firmly. And already the Ryan in the back of his mind was telling him, _never go it alone, idiot_. But he ignored it: if it wanted to give advice so badly, the real Ryan should be there to tell him himself. “As far as we know, they don’t know us yet. I’m going to grab Ryan, get him back here, and we’ll figure out a plan.”

Gavin looked around the room, hoping for backup. He received none.

Jeremy placed a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “We’ll be back soon,” he promised, and then he was out the door.

The rain, somehow, was coming down harder. Los Santos wasn’t built for heavy rain, and the drainage pipes were over flowing, spilling dark water onto the streets. The wipers on his car continued to whisk away the downpour, the hopeless task repeated over and over as Jeremy struggled to even see streetlights through the bloom. There was only one place Ryan was at this time of night, and Jeremy pulled to the Home & Garden shop as a particularly bad sheet dropped from the sky onto the world below.

Employees were desperately trying to get the displays inside, pots filling like rain barrels and the frailest of plants already in shredded messes. Jeremy made it inside, sopping wet and pant cuffs leaving streaks on the floor wherever he went, turning white as they reflected too-bright florescent bulbs. Patrolling around the first floor, he stopped only to check his phone again. No luck; he’d have to search.

And he did—because Ryan’s car was still in the lot, and the longer time ticked on as he peered through fichuses and gazebos, the more the cold on the back of his neck felt like it wasn’t from the rain.

When the first clap of thunder shook the building, he spotted Ryan examining some birdbaths. Ryan saw him too: which might have been exactly what he wanted, if at that moment somebody else hadn’t also caught sight of him.

The rather nice birdhouse to Jeremy’s left took a bullet in its basin, raining splinters on top of him. The store was suddenly a blur, Ryan catching sight of the attacker and dropping into cover. The man with the pistol hadn’t seen Ryan yet, and when fight or flight took, Jeremy found himself out and away through the cash registers and to a door marked _Employees Only_. His heart pounded with calculations, (that he needed to circle around to reach the back, that the shooter was now between him and his car, that he needed to keep their attention long enough so Ryan could make an escape) but when two more yellow jackets appeared to try their luck, they were wiped away and he instead scrambled into a back alley.

Blood was in his ears and they were so _close_ now, how had he let them get so damn _close_? He could stand and fight and shoot, but then a dumpster took what was meant for him and just kept splashing forward while his shoes became waterlogged. There were cars now, he could hear them in the streets, shouting about where he went. His escape routes were thinning, a noose tightening around his throat as he looked for a way out.

And then he heard the motorcycle. Through the rain it turned, its single bright high beam nearly blinding as it cast its cycloptic gaze upon him. On its back was Monki, leaning over the handlebars as it came to a stop, fresh wave of rainwater on his shoes.

His first thought was that she was going to shoot him. His mind fell to his magnum still in its holster, but she was ready and he was not he knew she could finish him before he blinked. But Monki made no move—she just stared, and when Jeremy was still frozen in place, the helmet made a backwards motion to the seat behind her. The message was clear: _get on_.

And he did. He could have thought more carefully, could have made a better decision, but his avenues had closed so fast the only thing left was pure instinct: someone was offering him a ride, and he was going to take it.

His arms were barely around her middle before she gunned it, the smell of gasoline and backwater ripe in the air. Jeremy kept expecting to hear more gunshots, to see headlights behind him as the bike joined the stream of bobbling traffic. But none came. Monki wound her way expertly through the stalled cars, and all Jeremy could do was hold on to the cheap fabric of her Hawaiian shirt. The reds and greens of traffic lights, the gold of streetlamps, the blue of oncoming cars, it all slicked together into a running distortion, the city one cold photograph with its f-stop set to nothing.

It must have been half an hour, maybe more, when she finally peeled off into a parking garage. They descended into the dark, the floor still damp from the slight dip into the underground, but mercifully out of the rain. As Monki got off, Jeremy realized how cold he was when not pressed to against her, and immediately began to shiver. He shook himself, waking to a reality that wasn’t just streetlamps blurring his vision, and followed after her, tripping over the kickstand as he went.

The parking garage seemed safe enough, especially if the Suns hadn’t followed them here. But as Jeremy looked around, it wasn’t the space itself that had been bothering him since their escape. It wasn’t even the distant fear for Ryan that was wedged like an ice pick in the base of his neck. No, it was Monki’s clothes—they weren’t the ones she’d been wearing when they’d first met. Now that he was really looking at her, she was dressed just like-

Monki took off her helmet.

“Jack??” Jeremy demanded.

Jack grinned at him. “‘Sup Jeremy.”

“Jack how-? What did you-? ” Jeremy’s mind whirred to keep up with scene in front of him. After a moment, he dejectedly asked, “…I don’t suppose there’s any chance you stole Monki’s bike and took it out for a joyride.”

“Nope!” she said.

“Yeah didn’t think so.” He rubbed his eyes, gloved hand bumping against a very wet hat. “All this time?”

“Yeah?”

“And you’ve just been? What? Messing with me?”

“I told you I’d be keeping tabs,” she pointed out. “Not my fault you got in hot with the Suns.”

Jeremy was not in the mood for puns. He glared at her and said, “and the ominous meeting outside the Kohl’s?”

She blinked, her eyebrows going high over her smile. “Oh yeah, that was just me fucking with you.”

He sighed, slouching forward, wet and miserable. But at least he was alive, no small part in thanks to the city’s most dangerous killer he’d unknowingly befriended. Another question was cut short when a voice from the garage’s entrance shouted, “don’t move!”

Jeremy looked up to see Ryan, mask and jacket donned, gun pointed down with a flurry of neon lights silhouetted behind him. It took him a moment to take in the situation, but then he lowered his gun to give a very pointed echo of, “Jack??”

“In the flesh!” she said, spreading out her arms.

It only took a second, but Ryan stashed his weapon and jogged down to them. He was on Jeremy immediately, looking at him every which way to see if he was injured. When he was satisfied, he nodded, and asked sincerely, “you alright?”

“…Yeah Ry. I’m alright.” Jeremy looked at Jack, then to Ryan. “I take it you didn’t know about this?”

He shook his head. “Can’t say that I did.”

“How’d you find us?”

“Monki-” Ryan, corrected himself, “ _Jack_ sent me a text saying if I wanted to see you again, I should come here. I think you’ll understand why I flipped the fuck out.”

Jeremy nodded, and turned to Jack. “You’re kind of a bastard, you know.”

“So I’ve been told,” she returned, her voice equally grave.

Ryan was still fussing over Jeremy. He must have decided that Jeremy was just too darn wet, and dropped his jacket over Jeremy’s shoulders. Jeremy hummed in appreciation before turning to Jack. “So what was all-,” he gestured wildly to the dripping parking garage. “This? Why all the secrecy?”

“I’d decided I liked you guys. After Australia.” Her brow furrowed, as though looking at something distant in the dark spires of concrete. “I haven’t been so… _keen_ to return to work. I thought, if I came out of retirement, it had to be for something actually worth it. So I decided to resign myself just to keeping an eye on you.”

“And fucking with us,” Ryan said.

“Yes. And fucking with you.”

“And…” Jeremy tried cautiously. “How about now? I don’t think saving me from firing squad is exactly ‘just keeping an eye out’.”

Her face relaxed for a moment, the corner of her mouth the only thing that moved as she chewed it. Then she tiled her head in Jeremy’s direction. “Yeah. I guess you got me on that.” She turned to them both, and clapped her hands. “There it is then. Like it or not, I’m joining the Fake AH Crew.”


	5. Cornucopia

“So…we’re pretty damn good,” Jeremy said as he swirled a finger over his drink. Ryan stared at the television across the bar, but Jeremy knew he was listening. “Five core members, rotating eight. Oh, I don’t know if I told you, but I got Trevor to come run gear on the next heist. He’s actually pretty good when the Boys aren’t trying to set something on fire.”

Ryan didn’t say anything, his arms folded on the bar with his chin on top. Beside him, his Diet Coke had gone flat as he watched the screen shift in green.

“So yeah. We’re set,” Jeremy concluded. “Reached the top. Ready to face the Suns head on.”

The pitcher hesitated, ball in hand, to the boos of the stadium unheard in the shuffle of the bar.

“…You think we need one more, don’t you.”

The ball went sailing, reflected in a pair of blue eyes just visible beneath the mask.

“…Okay. We’ll get one more.”

* * *

Geoff Ramsey turned out to be…enthusiastic.

They had “acquired” him with the help of Jack, who’d tracked him down near instantaneously, as though he’d just been waiting for the call. He wasn’t at all what Jeremy had expected: old corduroy jacket, messy black hair thinning at the top. He had tattoos all the way from his fingertips to his shoulder blades, and when he’d shook Jeremy’s hand, the strength of it made his whole arm shake. In short, he looked, frankly, like a punk.

“You got some uncouth taste in music dude,” he said when he first made his way into the AH household.

Jeremy turned from his workbench to see Geoff bent over his CD collection, casually perusing each with a casual _click, click, click_.

“I need inspiration,” Jeremy told him. He was used to Ryan’s musical snobbery, so all he offered was a little shrug. “Also, _uncouth_?”

“Perfectly cromulent word,” Geoff said, setting _Better Dayz_ back in its slot. He raised an eyebrow. “You rap?”

On that, Jeremy did fidget a little. “Used to. Haven’t touched it in a few years.”

“You got any tapes?” Geoff asked, and his voice was so genuine Jeremy was taken aback.

“I uh…yeah. If you want.” He twiddled his screwdriver in his hand. “Are you sure? It doesn’t really seem like your kinda stuff.”

Geoff smiled. “What, because I dress like this?” He indicated to himself vaguely . “Why don’t you try me.”

Jeremy gave him a wary smile. Hesitant as he was about taking recommendations second-hand, Geoff was exactly what the FAHC needed. He threw himself into his work, doing more for the crew in his short month on the team than Jeremy and Ryan had managed in his first three. His easy mannerisms endeared him to nearly everyone, and the feeling was mutual. He’d taken to Gavin instantly, which was shocking because Jeremy was under the impression that Gavin was un-take-able. Even Michael had spent months saying Gavin was the literal worst before that became a lie.

On the other side of the living room floor, Lindsay was struggling to amend their latest heist plan with her best idea yet.

“So there’s this port potty, and then I get the crane-”

“And then you shit your pants?” Michael cut in.

“Michael I swear I’m gunna kill you.”

Jeremy cast his eyes further past them to where Ryan and Jack were having a much more levelheaded conversation.

“-And it should be fine as long as she doesn’t Weems it up,” Ryan finished thoughtfully.

“I heard that!” came a voice from the kitchen, and Jack snickered.

Jeremy watched them with their heads together and let himself be glad he’d managed to find these perfect people who put up with him on a daily basis. When he turned to the speaker system again, he was surprised to see Geoff was struck too—awash with an expression Jeremy recognized. One he knew had sprung up on Jeremy’s own face before, eyes soft with just the faintest smile at the corner of his lips.

“You too, huh?” Jeremy asked.

Geoff turned to him, but the smile didn’t fade or pain. He just shrugged, in the most ambivalent _what are you gunna do?_

“You know she thinks the world of you,” Jeremy tried cautiously. You only had to watch them for a few minutes to see that, share a room and hear the way they talked to each other.

But Geoff just shook his head with a smirk. “You just want me to break them up so you can have Haywood to yourself.”

“The nerve of such a suggestion!”

Geoff snickered, but then went quiet. Thoughtful. “Plus, I had my chance. With things are the way they are now I’m…” He went silent for a moment. “I’m happy for them.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy agreed honestly, turning back to where Jack was mid-laugh. “Me too.”

The house was filled with papers shuffling, with fights and inside jokes, with Michael using his Lemongrab voice and Lindsay telling him to shut up. Arguments that had heat but no bite and conversations that went around in circles. Jeremy smiled, and went to get his wallet from above the key rack.

“I’m getting groceries,” he told the house as he headed for the door.

“I’ll come,” Geoff chimed in immediately.

“You sure?” Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “It’s just groceries, you don’t have to bodyguard me.”

Ryan’s car had been mournfully retired after its reputation preceded itself, but other than that they’d found no evidence that the Suns were tailing them. Still, Geoff nodded his head. “Hell yeah, I love food shopping.”

Jeremy made a curiously little _hm_ , but welcomed him along. The onset of summer had left Los Santos feeling hot and tense, like an underground fighter just itching for a match. Some of that was the Fakes doing; there hadn’t been a true crew war in almost four years, and the prospect of changing leadership had left speculators with their finger on the city’s pulse. Everywhere he turned he felt it. The onset of something big.

If he weren’t so in tune to the thrum of disquiet, he might have missed the man waiting for him as he left the store with his armful of groceries. But as it was, he saw him, and about dropped both paper bags on the burning sidewalk.

“…Hey,” Matt Bragg said.

Jeremy felt like his throat was closing. “…Hey.”

They stood, stared at each other as the sun beat down with no remorse. He had changed in the years since Liberty City, his hair was longer, a streak of purple touching him to his left. But most of all he looked older, and the realization shriveled inside Jeremy as he came to terms that he wouldn’t be the only one.

“So uh,” Matt said, in Jeremy’s impeding silence. “I heard you’re running a crew now.”

“I am,” Jeremy said, because what else could he say? It was like the Ghost of Christmas Past had shown, standing in front of the supermarket in a tattered old coat.

“You uh, looking for people?”

That set a thrum into the pit of Jeremy’s stomach, a rock of hurt that had calcified into something he hadn’t wanted to name, but now couldn’t help but spit out. He narrowed his eyes. “That’s it? Seven years, one side of the continent to the other and you come because now I’m _hiring_?”

Matt swallowed. The two of them stood, staring at each other, one shuffling his feet and one standing his ground. Matt looked too hot in that coat, a sharp contrast when all Jeremy wore was his dark tanktop. His arm still had the scars from that shattered storefront window.

“I read them,” Matt said suddenly. “I was always reading them.”

It felt like the glass from that night was back, but now buried in Jeremy’s throat instead of his skin. “You think that makes a difference?” he found himself saying. And it should, it _should_ have made a difference when he’d spent so many nights wondering if he was talking to the void, a disconnected number that would never phone back. But as he begged the question of the man in front of him, he found it really didn’t matter any more. “It makes it worse, Matt. You fucking…you ruined me.”

At that, Matt had nothing. He wasn’t equipped to be someone’s everything, a man who was neither built nor expected to be someone who could bear the feelings of others. He didn’t know how to handle the power to destroy someone with his ambivalence, and it showed. Maybe he deserved understanding. But understanding wasn’t justice.

“Leave,” Jeremy said. And in all the times he’d fantasized about this reunion, this was never how it had gone. But maybe in those imaginings, he’d still been his old self. The one that existed in Matt’s mind, just like Matt existed in his.

“Jeremy-”

“Matt,” he said, and the resolve in his voice surprised even him. “You need to go.”

Matt opened his mouth, but his eyes met Jeremy’s for the first time, and his face dissolved on itself. His shoulders slouched, and he turned. “Alright. Good luck, Jeremy. And…I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t enough, but as Matt retreated around the corner, Jeremy still couldn’t find it in him to hate the man.

The sound of distant traffic stretched on for minutes, when Geoff finally emerged from the automatic doors. “Hey.”

“…How much did you hear?” Jeremy managed to ask. It felt like one conversation had drained him as much as an hour-long motorcycle chase through the rain.

“Enough.” Geoff adjusted his grocery bag to place one hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Wanna talk?”

“Absolutely not,” Jeremy said. His eyes felt hot, and he didn’t trust himself not to say something Matt didn’t deserve.

“Alright,” Geoff said. “For what it’s worth, I think that was pretty brave.”

“…Thanks.” But Jeremy’s voice cracked, and he couldn’t keep it back anymore. He deposited his grocery bags on the ground. Geoff said nothing, and brought Jeremy into a half-hug.

When Jeremy pulled back, Geoff asked, “you wanna come back to my place?”

The question prompted what Geoff must have already known, that Jeremy really wasn’t ready to face the others right now. “I…” He looked at the bags on the floor. “We have groceries.”

“So? I have a freezer numbnuts, I’m not a fucking hobo.”

Jeremy chuckled, and to his surprise, it didn’t feel forced. He helped Geoff load everything into the truck and let the man direct him to a cylinder block apartment complex south of Morningwood. The windows were grey and slanted, the paint that had once clung to the wood trim long since wiped away.

The door came open to a dark apartment, nothing but watery light through naked windows. It had almost perfected its air of desolate abandonment when a voice came out from the shadows to say, “hey Geoff. Don’t shoot me.”

Jeremy almost disobeyed that directly, and would have shot the mystery voice if his hands hadn’t been filled with paper and plastic. Geoff, likewise, yelped, and flipped on the lightswitch with a, “ _fuck_ Kdin.”

The bare bulb above revealed a girl with curly brown hair and a frown on her face, sitting with her phone her hand. The girl, Kdin, furrowed her brow and said, “before you ask, no, I didn’t break in here. I still have a key.”

Geoff didn’t look happy, but he wasn’t threatened either, so Jeremy took his cues. When he shuffled behind Geoff in support, Kdin’s eyes flicked to him.

Somehow, her expression looked _even_ more irritated. “I thought this might be my last chance to talk to you in private, but I guess that’s out the window too.”

Her words caused Geoff to stir, but that’s not what caught Jeremy’s attention. The more he looked at her clearly under the yellow glow, face hardened even as she leaned back in Geoff’s armchair, recognition slowly dawned on him. He glared down at her. “You’re one of the Yellow Suns.”

“You’re damn right I am. So is half of Los Santos.”

“What do you want, Jenzen?” Geoff cut in. Which was probably good since Jeremy was already lock-and-loading some rather choice words.

“To warn you,” she said, her eyes coming off Jeremy to rest on Geoff. “And keep you out of an early grave.”

Jeremy stepped forward. “If you think you can threaten my people in front of me-”

“It’s not a _threat_ ,” she hissed at him. “It’s the truth. I’m here as a friend, Geoff. If you even still have those.” Her attention was gone again, as though looking at Jeremy too long would make her ill.

Jeremy felt a hand on his shoulder, gently dragging him backwards. Geoff shot him a _let me handle this_ look. He asked, “you sure this is just a friendly house visit?”

“No one sent me, if that’s what you’re asking.” Geoff didn’t look like he quite believed her. Her expression saddened ever so slightly. “Is it so hard to believe I don’t want you to die? And you will. You always knew how to pick the losing horse.

“I picked you, didn’t I?”

At that, the last of Kdin’s anger faded away. “And look how that turned out.” She turned, and when she faced them again she was nothing but resigned. “I’m going now. I just wanted to say all that, maybe give you a chance. I don’t want to have to shoot you Geoff, but if the next time I see you is on the wrong side of a deal, I will.”

When she rose, Jeremy tensed, but the grip on his arm pulled him back to let her through. Jeremy didn’t look at Geoff as she left, and Kdin stared directly ahead as she disappeared down the street.

“So uh,” Geoff said after a minute of silence. “Welcome to my crib.”

“That wasn’t the sort of company I was expecting,” Jeremy said drily.

“Well, I guess we both got to meet some old ghosts today.”

Jeremy finally set his bags down on the kitchen table, facing Geoff fully. “How are you doing?”

“…Worse.” Geoff rubbed his face in his hands. “But I’ll manage.” He paused, looking out the window to the street. “Thanks for being understanding.”

“Like you said Ramsey. We all got ghosts.”

* * *

With Geoff around, the crew felt….complete. Not that they were ready, but that they were ready to _start_ to be ready. They had just been waiting for some extra muscle. An emotional centerpiece. An engine to make it go.

“-And we’re going to win this,” Jeremy barreled into the speech with no planning, no preparation. Just the fire in his gut that told him the right words would come.

The living room had become an auditorium of people. Jack and Ryan were nestled on the loveseat, jamming an unperturbed Kent into the very corner. Fiona, Gavin, Michael, and Lindsay had claimed the floor, the latter with her feet in the air and hands under chin like a child at story time. Sarah and Steffie stood as sentinels at the door, opposite from whence Alec had pulled enough chairs for himself, Jacob and Ashley. It was a long way from a lone plastic chair in the middle of a lonely kitchen.

“Hell yeah,” Alfredo said from his lean on the back of the loveseat, to which Trevor promptly _shush_ ed him.

“This war will forge us in fire,” Jeremy continued. (He was pretty sure he’d heard that in a movie.) “Either we come out on top, or we don’t come out at all.”

“You heard it here first,” Geoff said, positioned neatly in Jeremy’s personal swivel chair. “We fuck this up, everyone goes back in the closet.”

He was in the corner of Jeremy’s eye, scooted just far enough to be seen. Jeremy cracked a small grin. Everything was where it should be, and when he looked across the sea of faces, he couldn’t stop the swell of pride sitting in his chest, confident of what they’d him help make.

He nodded in approval. “So there we go. Lets go crack some skulls.”

There was silence for a moment, everyone looking at each other before Ryan raised his hand and asked, “were we supposed to say a chant after that or something?”

“I mean…It would be cool if you guys said ‘fuck yeah’.”

They didn’t need to be told twice, and a chorus of _fuck yeah_ s and _you know it_ s rumbled the house deep enough to shake its foundations, with even one trailing _gamers rise up_ from Fiona. Jeremy drank them all in, and knew there was no way in hell they’d lose.


End file.
